"Mettlesome" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... old Archie only wagged his head and answered, "Odd zooks, Cousin Charlie, Christmas raisins are not the only fruit that burns the fingers in the plucking, and mayhap you too may live to know that a mettlesome horse never stumbleth but ...
— The Children's Book of Christmas Stories • Various
... peace at Bordentown in the year Seventeen Hundred Eighty-seven. The war was ended, the last hostile Britisher had departed, and the country was awakening to prosperity. Paine rode his mettlesome old war-horse "Button," back and forth from Philadelphia, often stopping and seating himself by the roadway to write out a thought while the horse that had known the smell of powder quietly nibbled the grass. The success of Benjamin Franklin ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 9 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Reformers • Elbert Hubbard
... nor the woman curbed the mettlesome Pegasus "Emotion", methinks the colts and fillies would want for hay and oats. * ...
— Hints for Lovers • Arnold Haultain
... the prairie gleamed dimly white, with the sledge trail cutting athwart it, a smear of blue-gray in the foreground. It was—for Lander's lay behind them with the snow among the stubble belts that engirdled it—an empty wilderness that the mettlesome team swung across, and during the first few minutes the cold struck through the horses with a sting like the thrust of steel. A half moon, coppery red with frost, hung low above the snow-covered earth, ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... were his pets, and he knew the peculiarities of each as well as did the man who cared for them. Riding and driving came to him as naturally as breathing, and the fact that a steed was mettlesome did not ...
— American Boy's Life of Theodore Roosevelt • Edward Stratemeyer
... further remonstrance would be unavailing, and very reluctantly got ready the mettlesome steed. Gilbert jumped on his back and put his ...
— Tom, The Bootblack - or, The Road to Success • Horatio Alger
... red-letter days out of the two weeks they were to spend at home. Peaceful thoughts filled the hearts of most of them, but B.J. dreamed chiefly of the furious conflicts that awaited him on the lake, which had been the scene of many an adventure in his mettlesome ice-boat. ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... out. We were shown maps of the salient, and had the area pointed out to us where the French joined up with the second and third brigades of Canadians, and where the British troops joined up with the Canadians. When about to leave, a friend, Major Maclaren of the 10th Infantry battalion, riding a mettlesome horse, rode up and I got out of the car and held the bridle while we had a long talk about the experiences of the Canadians since ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... she is said to have had an encounter with the arm of the law. The story is that, mounted on a blood horse, she attended a review held in honour of the King and the Czar; and her steed, being somewhat mettlesome, carried her at full tilt across the parade ground and into the midst of the royal party assembled at ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... of it, the high-spirited mettlesome animal, scarcely broken, reared and sprang forward, all but unseating him. He dropped the reins and instinctively caught its mane, at the same time pressing his legs more closely in against the animal's sides, thus driving the spur deeper. They ...
— The Choir Invisible • James Lane Allen
... rare harpooner, when the whale and canoe appear as if about to meet each other straight head-on. Then, in a flash, the man in the bow is up on his feet, with the harpoon so poised that the rocking water, the mettlesome canoe, and his watchful comrade in the stern, all form part of the concentrated energy with which he brings his every faculty to a single point of instantaneous action. There, for one fateful moment, he stands erect, ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... quick; touch on the raw, touch a raw nerve. Adj. sensible, sensitive; impressible, impressionable; susceptive, susceptible; alive to, impassionable^, gushing; warm hearted, tender hearted, soft hearted; tender as a chicken; soft, sentimental, romantic; enthusiastic, highflying^, spirited, mettlesome, vivacious, lively, expressive, mobile, tremblingly alive; excitable &c 825; oversensitive, without skin, thin-skinned; fastidious &c 868. Adv. sensibly &c adj.; to the quick, to the inmost core. Phr. mens aequa in arduis [Lat.]; pour ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... was mettlesome, thoroughly aroused, and he wanted a free rein and his own way. Helen tried that, only to lose the trail and to get sundry knocks from trees and branches. She could not hear the hound, nor Dale. The pines were small, close together, ...
— The Man of the Forest • Zane Grey
... breaking forth of hidden flames. Let two schoolfellows meet after twenty years, the rich man will avoid the poor; he does not recognize him, he is afraid even to glance into the gulf which Fate has set between him and the friend of other years. The one has been borne through life on the mettlesome steed called Fortune, or wafted on the golden clouds of success; the other has been making his way in underground Paris through the sewers, and bears the marks of his career upon him. How many a chum of old days turned ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... horse is suited for hunting in Virginia, and for this reason the more experienced riders to hounds prefer the thoroughbred, though half-bred and three-quarter-bred horses are also used to some extent, the thoroughbred often being too mettlesome, when he becomes excited, for any but the best riders. The finest qualities of a horse are brought out in hunting in the Piedmont section, for the pace here is very fast—much faster than in England, though it should be added that in the English hunting country there are more hedges than over ...
— American Adventures - A Second Trip 'Abroad at home' • Julian Street
... Cranbery. He didn't know how to manage her. His bridle hand warn't good, I tell you. A spry, mettlesome hoss, and a dull critter with no action, don't mate well in harness, that's ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... Equestrians and wheelmen were also out in full force, and the presence of so many people set Nan's blood tingling with excitement. She tossed her head back, as the governess uttered her decision, with the impatience of a mettlesome horse. ...
— The Governess • Julie M. Lippmann
... stroke, boy, and a mettlesome spirit! You struck him swift and hard. 'Twould please me better if ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... by the other knight, proceeded to the stable, from whence, with his own hands, he drew forth one of his best horses, a fine mettlesome sorrel, who had got blood in him, ornamented with rich trappings. In a trice, the two knights, and the other two strangers, who now appeared to be trumpeters, were mounted. Sir Launcelot's armour was lacquered black; and on his shield was represented ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... Beaverdam Circuit, and he had bought a new horse—a horse gifted with ungodly speed in the legs and a mettlesome, race-track temperament. On a certain Saturday, after services at Beaverdam Church, we were returning home in a light buggy drawn by the big, rawboned bay. When we came to a long stretch of good road William tightened the reins, took on a scandalous expression ...
— A Circuit Rider's Wife • Corra Harris
... of the Sea Islands, when found by us, had become an abject race, more docile and submissive than those of any other locality. The native African was of a fierce and mettlesome temper, sullen and untamable. The master was obliged to abate something of the usual rigor in dealing with the imported slaves. A tax-commissioner, now at Port Royal, and formerly a resident of South Carolina, told me that a native African belonging ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. September, 1863, No. LXXI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... wind of the call, and his murmuring voice. A long, shrill whistle, with the words, "Good humour, ahoy!" had hitherto served to keep down the rising tempers of the different parties, when the joke bore too hard on the high-spirited soldier, or the revengeful, though perhaps less mettlesome, member of the after-guard. But an oversight on the part of him who in common kept so vigilant an eye on the movements of all beneath his orders, had nearly led to results of a far ...
— The Red Rover • James Fenimore Cooper
... together, you are sure to lose your game, for either your line, or hook, or hold, will break: and after you have overcome them, they will make noble sport, and are very shy to be landed. The Carp is far stronger and more mettlesome than the Bream. ...
— The Complete Angler • Izaak Walton
... guns—wild-boars, roebucks, cerfs-dix-cors, and what not; of perilous swims in stormy seas—tremendous adventures in fishing-smacks on moonlight nights (it seemed that the moon had been at the full all through those wonderful six weeks); rides ventre a terre on mettlesome Arab steeds through gloomy wolf-haunted forests with charming female cousins; flirtations and "good fortunes" with beautiful but not happily married women in old mediaeval castle keeps. Toujours au clair ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... insist upon your taking a glass of something before you are off.—Patrick!" But before Patrick has even started on my lady's errand Hyacinthe has fetched from the hall a glass of claret-cup, and holds it up to him where he sits on his lithe and mettlesome hunter. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, August, 1878 • Various
... on the alert and defensive. Out on the prairie, three hundred yards beyond, a spotted Indian pony, heels up, was rolling on the turf, evidently sorely wounded. Behind this rolling parapet crouched a feathered warrior, and farther still away, sweeping and circling on their mettlesome steeds, three more savage braves were darting at speed. Already they had sighted the coming reinforcements, and while two seemed frantically signalling toward the northwest, the third whirled his horse and sped madly away ...
— A Daughter of the Sioux - A Tale of the Indian frontier • Charles King
... complications, especially with a Kansan who had wandered among them some time since. The Kansan, whose name was Collins, was an ex-Federal, even one of their ancient and warmest enemies, of the Sixth Kansas Cavalry. And being a mettlesome young man into the bargain, he rose by unanimous consent to command a native company of the troop. But Captain Collins found it hard to address a Missouri private as colonel, and to be addressed by the Missouri private as ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle |
